Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, caused something of a stir at the annual Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida. During an informal ‘fireside chat’ with Lt. Gen. John Thompson of Space Command on Friday, Musk told a room packed with fighter pilots that “the fighter jet era has passed”. Now, Musk is renowned for finding soundbites for the media to hook onto, and also of causing calculated disruption in his target audience, but even by his standards this is a well-baited line. What makes this such a bold and controversial statement?

The contemporary battlefield is far more networked, complex, congested and lethal – it’s those that adapt that will survive. Simply being ‘a good stick’ will rapidly no longer cut it in the hostile skies of the future.

Musk’s main thrust is, however, that the human in the cockpit is the limiting factor in air combat now, not the advantage.

Firstly, humans are awkward for aircraft designers to accommodate. In a modern fighter the pilot sits on an ejection seat for emergency escape, needs an oxygen supply and air-conditioning to function at extremes of temperature and altitude, and requires flight controls and instruments to fly and fight the machine. All of these add a significant amount of weight and cost into the aircraft. Moreover, having a transparent canopy to permit the crew to see out does little to improve signature management¹ as radar cross section and the chances of reflected sun glint all increase. The human also adds more weight, especially when encumbered with flight kit such as helmet, NVGs, g-suit and flight planning and survival equipment. Traditionally, pilots sit toward the front of the aircraft to afford them the best view for take-off and landing, as well as air combat. This has implications on aerodynamics, stealth¹ design and weight distribution factors. In short, it can make the designers life a lot simpler if the pilot/crew are not in the aircraft.

(Extracted from https://www.forbes.com/. Accessed on March 03, 2022.)

Vocabulary:

1. Signature management and stealth: both terms refer to technology that reduces the likelihood of personnel, aircrafts, missiles, etc. being detected.

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, caused something of a stir at the annual Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida. During an informal ‘fireside chat’ with Lt. Gen. John Thompson of Space Command on Friday, Musk told a room packed with fighter pilots that “the fighter jet era has passed”. Now, Musk is renowned for finding soundbites for the media to hook onto, and also of causing calculated disruption in his target audience, but even by his standards this is a well-baited line. What makes this such a bold and controversial statement?

The contemporary battlefield is far more networked, complex, congested and lethal – it’s those that adapt that will survive. Simply being ‘a good stick’ will rapidly no longer cut it in the hostile skies of the future.

Musk’s main thrust is, however, that the human in the cockpit is the limiting factor in air combat now, not the advantage.

Firstly, humans are awkward for aircraft designers to accommodate. In a modern fighter the pilot sits on an ejection seat for emergency escape, needs an oxygen supply and air-conditioning to function at extremes of temperature and altitude, and requires flight controls and instruments to fly and fight the machine. All of these add a significant amount of weight and cost into the aircraft. Moreover, having a transparent canopy to permit the crew to see out does little to improve signature management¹ as radar cross section and the chances of reflected sun glint all increase. The human also adds more weight, especially when encumbered with flight kit such as helmet, NVGs, g-suit and flight planning and survival equipment. Traditionally, pilots sit toward the front of the aircraft to afford them the best view for take-off and landing, as well as air combat. This has implications on aerodynamics, stealth¹ design and weight distribution factors. In short, it can make the designers life a lot simpler if the pilot/crew are not in the aircraft.

(Extracted from https://www.forbes.com/. Accessed on March 03, 2022.)

Vocabulary:

1. Signature management and stealth: both terms refer to technology that reduces the likelihood of personnel, aircrafts, missiles, etc. being detected.

TEXT I

I know I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

(YEATS, W.B. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death in Rhyme and Reason, An Anthology. Org. O’MALLEY, Raymond. Hart-Davis Educational.)

TEXT II

Oh, I’ve just come from the land of the sun

From a war that must be won

In the name of truth

With our soldiers so brave

Your freedom we will save

With our rifles and grenades

And some help from God

I want to see my family

My wife and child waiting for me

I’ve got to go home

I’ve been so alone you see

You just can’t believe

The joy I did receive

When I finally got my leave

And I was going home

Oh, I flew through the sky

My convictions could not lie

For my country I would die

And I will see it soon

When I walked through the door

My wife she laid upon the floor

And with tears her eyes were sore

I did not know why

Then I looked into her hand

And I saw the telegram

Said that I was a brave, brave man

But that I was dead

(SUMMER, Bernard; GILBERT, Gillian; HOOK, Peter; MORRIS, Stephen. Lyrics to Love Vigilantes, performed by New Order, Low Life CD, track 1, Universal Music Publishing Group, 1986. Taken from https://lyricfind.com)

Oh, I’ve just come from the land of the sun

From a war that must be won

In the name of truth

With our soldiers so brave

Your freedom we will save

With our rifles and grenades

And some help from God

I want to see my family

My wife and child waiting for me

I’ve got to go home

I’ve been so alone you see

You just can’t believe

The joy I did receive

When I finally got my leave

And I was going home

Oh, I flew through the sky

My convictions could not lie

For my country I would die

And I will see it soon

When I walked through the door

My wife she laid upon the floor

And with tears her eyes were sore

I did not know why

Then I looked into her hand

And I saw the telegram

Said that I was a brave, brave man

But that I was dead

(SUMMER, Bernard; GILBERT, Gillian; HOOK, Peter; MORRIS, Stephen. Lyrics to Love Vigilantes, performed by New Order, Low Life CD, track 1, Universal Music Publishing Group, 1986. Taken from https://lyricfind.com)

Oh, I’ve just come from the land of the sun

From a war that must be won

In the name of truth

With our soldiers so brave

Your freedom we will save

With our rifles and grenades

And some help from God

I want to see my family

My wife and child waiting for me

I’ve got to go home

I’ve been so alone you see

You just can’t believe

The joy I did receive

When I finally got my leave

And I was going home

Oh, I flew through the sky

My convictions could not lie

For my country I would die

And I will see it soon

When I walked through the door

My wife she laid upon the floor

And with tears her eyes were sore

I did not know why

Then I looked into her hand

And I saw the telegram

Said that I was a brave, brave man

But that I was dead

(SUMMER, Bernard; GILBERT, Gillian; HOOK, Peter; MORRIS, Stephen. Lyrics to Love Vigilantes, performed by New Order, Low Life CD, track 1, Universal Music Publishing Group, 1986. Taken from https://lyricfind.com)

TEXT I

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

(DICKENS, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Penguin Books, 1994.)

TEXT II

Franval who lived in Paris, where he was born, possessed, along with an income of 400,000 livres, the finest figure, the most pleasant face and the most varied talents; but beneath this attractive exterior lay hidden every vice, and unfortunately those of which the adoption and habitual indulgence lead so rapidly to crime. An imagination more unbridled than anything one can depict was Franval’s prime defect; men of this kind do not mend their ways, the decline of power makes them worse; the less they do, the more they undertake; the less they achieve, the more they invent; each age brings new ideas, and satiety, far from cooling their ardour, only prepares the way for more fatal refinements.

(SADE, Marquis de. The Gothic Tales of the Marquis de Sade. 2000.)